Hello,
I have a customer that has a few small areas of vct that he wants me to strip and wax. Can the challenger be used to polish or buff the floor or do I need a higher speed burnisher? What pad should I use for the stripping portion of this job? I do have some fiber plus pads. Any help on vct work would be helpfull.
Thank you
Steve Shimek
Steve
I am far from the expert on the subject of floor stripping. I have stripped only one floor: a very
old quarry tile floor with many coats of acrylic
buildup on it. It was a favor, more than a job I
went looking for. I bought a gallon of what my local
janitorial supply house said was a qood quality
stripping product. I sprayed it down. Gave it maybe
a half hour of dwell time. Then went after it with
the Challenger using its tile & grout brush - the
early version with the longer bristles around the
perimeter. I had to do this about 3 times, each time mopping up the mess with terrycloth pads. I had
to finish the job on hands & knees with my steam vapor
machine to remove the remaining pockets of built-up
acrylic.
I would go to www.icsmag.com's Bulletin Board. Tell
them you have an OP machine, and ask what people there
who have done this sort of work would recommend.
Re. buffing wax into a shine, my understanding from
talking to people at Oreck (they make the orbital
LowBoy) is that you can get shine with their machine, but not as good as with a 2000 RPM burnisher.
also, read the instructions on the stripper bottle. most say a dwell time of around 10 minutes.
one thing you do NOT want is for the stripper to dry on the VCT. usually starts drying for me in about 15 minutes, depends on the airflow, humidity and other things of course. after 10 minutes i shop-vac it up, then mop with clean hot water then apply finish.
